


On the Brink of Autumn

by katajainen



Series: 1001 ways of confessing your love: Gigolas edition [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Eventual Fluff, Fangorn Forest, Fluff, Gigolas Week 3, Gimli is clueless, I have a huge soft spot for Fangorn, Insanely detailed depictions of lush Fangorn Forest, Legolas gets his act together, M/M, One Shot, Post-War of the Ring, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 16:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5382281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gimli braves the Fangorn Forest with Legolas. He's in for a surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Brink of Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> Gigolas week 2015 day 8: "I always thought I was supposed to go first" (if you interpret it loosely, it's in here twice!).
> 
> My very first LOTR (and Tolkien-related) fic I've, and also the single hardest thing I've written since my MA thesis (and that was in 2008). At the moment I'd rather flay myself than attempt this again.
> 
> The one thing I don't regret is the gratuitously over-detailed Fangorn. Fangorn/Ents are my favourite things in LOTR, period.
> 
> Kindly pre-read by long-suffering Saraste, but any and all mistakes are entirely my own.
> 
>    
>  **Edit:** Wrote more Gigolas and still not flaying myself :) It's simply an addictive pairing.

‘I always thought I would go first...’

‘Nay. I won’t have it said that I was so afeared to enter a forest that I let you in first.’ And with that, Gimli strode purposefully past the first trees into the green-golden shade of Fangorn, his hand a deliberate distance from the axe in his belt. After a good ten yards or so, he looked over his shoulder. ‘You coming or not?’ With a barely perceptible shrug, Legolas stepped lightly after him, Arod trailing after him as if on an invisible lead.

For some while, the Elf, the Dwarf and the horse walked in silence, following the west bank of Entwash where the late summer sunshine painted the carpet of moss and ferns with flecks of bronze and emerald. The soft forest floor with its centuries of accumulated leaf litter muffled the sound of every footfall, while the twitter of birds and the skitter of small furry creatures in the undergrowth and up in the trees could be heard with crystalline clarity. The trees were as ancient as ever, with long beards of lichen hanging from age-gnarled branches, still bearing a lush summer foliage just beginning to turn. Gimli looked up as they stepped over a narrow rill running into Entwash. The sun was high on the sky with nary a cloud in sight. He glanced at his companion. The Elf was holding out one hand to brush against the leaves as he walked, his eyes vacant and day-dreaming. If he was singing of the beauty of the forest, he was doing so in his mind only, for no sound escaped between his slightly parted lips.

‘Still got your tongue tied after Aglarond?’ Gimli began. ‘I thought it certain you would find words for green growing trees, if not for lofty caves and glittering stone, but now it appears I’m wrong.’

Legolas looked back at him, as if startled. ‘No... I’m finding words in abundance, but none of them apt for the purpose. Everything feels older than myself by an Age at least, and yet so changed since we last walked under these trees.’

Gimli stopped and thought upon this. ‘Changed, aye. And for the better. I won’t say the forest considers me a friend, but somehow I feel tolerated instead of smothered.’

Legolas laid a light hand on his shoulder. ‘Mellon nîn, I doubt Fangorn will ever be friendly, but you feel right. I feel as if long slow anger of the trees has diminished, no, drained away to very nearly nothing. The very air feels fresh and new to breathe, like after a thunderstorm.’ Suddenly, he spun on his heel and took several light, dancing steps to their left. ‘Come, Gimli, I have a mind to find the source of this creek. Who knows, it might be an hour away, or all the way in the foothills of Methedras.’

Gimli laughed. ‘Aye, that’s a fine trick you’re trying on me: looking to exchange two days in Aglarond for a week wandering back and forth across Fangorn, are you?’

‘Please, let us wander this one fine day where our fancy would take us! Then tomorrow we’ll head straight to the east as the bird flies.’

‘Agreed: for today, I’ll be in the service of your fancy.’

‘I will hold you to that promise, so be warned.’ Legolas flashed him a glittering smile.

And so they set out from the lush valley of Entwash, following the course of this nameless little water, burbling away between moss-covered stones under the canopy of overhanging branches. The undergrowth was sparse, but moss in every shade of green covered the bulging, gnarled roots of each ancient oak, elm and ash, and of those Gimli couldn’t give a name to. Many trees had such an impressive girth Gimli was certain they couldn’t have reached around them together, had they been inclined to try, even with the length of Elven limbs to their advantage. But every now and then he beheld a shaft of light piercing the leafy roof over their heads, and in those sunlit gaps, saplings grew, some shorter than Gimli himself, some proudly reaching past Legolas’ golden head. Each was flanked by opportunistic shrubbery: elder, dogwood and honeysuckle, all jostling for a place in the sun. The air was moist and sweet, yet warm, but with the barest hint of imminent autumn.

They walked side by side, in companionable silence. Quite close, but not touching, except for the occasional, completely accidental brush of an arm to another’s. After a while, Legolas started to hum. A bit after, he was putting words to the tune, in Sindarin, if Gimli’s ears didn’t lie.

‘Composing now, are you?’

‘Would try to, if it weren’t for nosy Dwarfs interrupting,’ quipped Legolas, his mouth quirked in a half-smile Gimli couldn’t help but return. ‘The occasion demands a song, don’t you agree?’

‘Aye – but it would be kinder of you to put it in words the present company might understand.’

‘Well...’ The Elf suddenly looked away, the colour on his cheeks surely not born of their leisurely trek among the trees. Gimli raised an eyebrow; this was a new sight to behold. The proud Prince of Mirkwood, with all his centuries on him, as flustered and tongue-tied as any lad of sixty, with his beard still too short for proper braids.

‘I tried to, at first,’ Legolas said finally. ‘But I couldn’t find Westron words to match the way I feel --- about Fangorn, and exploring it in the present company.’

‘‘S that so.’ At a loss for words himself, now, Gimli sought to make light of it. ‘In that case the present company would apologize for making a nuisance of themselves to one in face of a task of such difficulty. Please do go on, Master Elf, I won’t disturb you with even a whisper.’ With a final glance at the Elf’s confounded face, Gimli strode again amid the trees, so close to the water his boots were making the softest of splash. My troth, I believe it would kill you to speak your meaning plainly for once. But the way you blush... that’s quite a something.

Even as he strode ahead, Gimli could sense, if not hear, Legolas some distance behind him. The sun turned in the sky. The forest crowded in on them, creating a shadowy green tunnel where the water whispered softly in the moss. A strange calm stole over Gimli. In some unfathomable way, the trees began to remind him of Aglarond, for in both places the irregular, yet structured grace and majesty had grown of their own accord, without being built by any living hand. But the forest, on its own, would change more rapidly the caves ever could. The coming night would be chill, turning yet more leafs golden and iron-red. Then would come snow, then a silvery-green spring. And yet the Elves, immortal and changeless in themselves, loved the ever-changing trees, while the Dwarves, mortal, sought to craft beauty in everlasting stone. Could it be that each sought after something that would complement their true nature, however contradictory it might seem at the first?

The Elf started humming again, this time a different tune. This one oddly sounded something less Elven, something you actually could whistle to. After a moment, Gimli did exactly that. Mahal knew he had never been one given to sulking, so he would take an offer of peace where he found it.

‘Might as well start looking around for a likely campsite, don’t you think?’ he said after a while. ‘No reason to leave it to the last moment of sunlight, since we are only strolling around for the scenery.’

‘I’m happy to leave it all to you, my friend. I’d be quite content to while the night away under any of these ancient trees, but I’m sure you can find us somewhere more practical.’ And there it was again, that infuriating half-smile. There had been a time not too long ago, a lifetime ago, when Gimli would have thought the Elf mocked him, but now he suspected the joke was mostly on Legolas himself. In a forest like this, Elves would, after all, merrily spend the night with nothing more than the starry sky for a tent and blanket, and nothing more than a song for warmth.

In the end, they reached the source of the streamlet they had been trailing the whole afternoon. Its course started from a shallow spring-fed pool under a low rocky outcrop rising maybe three fathoms above the forest floor. A stocky old willow, stooped with great age, hung its yellowing leaf-tips to the surface, its image wavering as the water moved.

‘This might do it,’ he said, measuring a plot with his strides. ‘The tent here and a fire against the rock face, well clear of the trees. Although -’ Gimli cocked his head sideways, ‘it would be yet more to my liking without the old willowy thing over there. Reminds me a rather too much of that nasty black-hearted nuisance in the Old Forest the halflings told about.’

Oh rest easy, mellon nîn.’ Legolas stepped beside the willow, his hand sliding along the craggy, uneven bark. ‘This one’s only old in the manner of common willows, its heart not black, but soft grey-green and sleepy. I doubt it yearns for nothing more than a tranquil winter’s sleep with the promise of spring. But do look yonder – I did not realize the autumn this far already. Is it already the time for rowan-berries to ripen?’ And he pointed at a scraggly little tree, in truth no more than a shrub, growing out of a deep narrow pocket in the rock above the pool, bent almost double with a heavy crop of flame-red berries.

Gimli craned his neck to see. ‘Will you look at the weight of them! That better be an omen for heavy snowfall, because I’d rather be well rid of war-omens for quite some time to come.’ He pushed his helmet back and squinted against the sky. ‘But that’s not a rowan, is that? The one with large red berries up in the sun there.’

‘Ai! But that is delightful! A dog-rose! This is a lucky spot you’ve picked us, to have rosehips for the gathering.’ With that, the Elf dropped his pack and nimbly clambered up the rock face. ‘I’ll make tea. It’s delicious, you’ll see!’ he called down. Gimli shrugged, and started unpacking the tent.

A while later, the tent was pitched, the horse tended to and their dinner gently simmering. Legolas sat cross-legged beside the fire, patiently removing the seeds from the rosehips with the tip of a small skinning knife. There was an abundance of the deep red bounty gathered in his lap, the colour accentuated by the green of his tunic. He would use some for tea after they’d eaten, he’d told Gimli, and set the rest to dry by the fire. He was humming under his breath, seemingly content.

‘Still lost for words, are you?’

Legolas looked up. ‘What? No --- it’s just a tune for its own sake. Good and well as it is.’ He smiled and cocked his head. ‘But you,’ he extended a pale hand, ‘you have leafs in your beard, my friend.’

‘’What? Where?’ Gimli tried to peer down.

‘No. Please let me.’ Elven-swift, the slender fingers were in his beard before he had a chance to protest, parting the hair, untangling. Gimli’s hands hovered in mid-air, poised to push him away or to draw him closer.

‘Wait but a moment, it is right and well knotted in...’ Legolas muttered, his head bowed, his face unreadable to Gimli. The silver-gold hair almost brushed his nose. It smelled of sun, of the forest, and something Gimli couldn’t name. The gentle, almost ticklish tugging at his chin ceased of a sudden. ‘Now! Here’s one part of Fangorn less than glad to be parted from you.’ Legolas held aloft a small twig still sporting a pair of greenish-yellow leafs. ‘It’s birch, there’s plenty of them growing...’ and he trailed off, his luminous eyes only inches from Gimli’s. Then, without hesitation, like it was the most natural thing to do, like he had done it a thousand thousand times already, he leaned in and kissed Gimli.

The Dwarf let a small gasp of surprise against those warm, wonderfully soft lips. His uncertain hands suddenly found purpose, grasping the Elf’s shoulders like those of one drowning, drawing him into his embrace. He felt a soft laughter against his lips, felt a slim hand trail upon his cheek, the fingers of another tangling into his hair.

Finally, they surfaced for breath. Gimli was the first to speak. ‘I’ll have you know I was certain to have the first move on you.’ Legolas’ laughter was silver and swift like springwater, his one hand absent-mindedly picking up some spilled rosehips from the ground.

‘Oh meleth nîn, I’ve walked a day under trees possibly more ancient than any in Middle-Earth, bent low by years past counting. I trust you’ll find I’ve grown both young and bold in the company of such venerable old age.’

‘Bold, you say’, Gimli grinned. ‘I might grow to like that. But now it’s my turn.’

**Author's Note:**

> Mellon nîn - my friend  
> Meleth nîn - my love
> 
> A heavy crop of rowan-berries could signify either a) heavy snowfall for the next winter b) only a little snow c) oncoming war. Pick your prediction!


End file.
